FRONT OF TUMBLING GLACIER ON BERG LAKE
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
DOMINION PARKS BRANCH
Glaciers of the Rockies and Selkirks
By
A. P. Coleman, M.A., Ph. D., F.R.S.
President Alpine Club of Canada
Author of “The Canadian Rockies”
With Notes on Five Great Glaciers of the Canadian National Parks
By
A. O. Wheeler, Director Alpine Club of Canada
Re-Published under the direction of
Sir James Lougheed
Minister of the Interior
First Edition, 1914
Second Edition, 1921
Glaciers of the Rockies and Selkirks
The traveller going westwards from the prairie findsthe way blocked by a grim wall of cliffs rising 7,000or 8,000 feet above the sea and justifying the nameof the “Rockies” given to our greatest chain of mountains.Toward the end of the summer these desolate precipices aresnowless and except for a glimpse of white peaks throughsome pass there is scarcely a suggestion of the glacier regionwithin. Then the train enters the “Gap” and before long thesummits around show fields or patches of midsummer snow;and as one draws nearer to the heart of the Rockies there isblue ice to be seen clinging to the cliffs or reaching as glaciersdown into the wooded valleys, and one is thrilled with thewild charm of alpine scenery.
However, engineers are strict utilitarians and always choosethe lowest pass for a railway, so that the passenger in theobservation car catches only tantalizing glimpses of the wondersand beauties of the ice world a few miles away and a few thousandfeet above the valley. One must stop at some place likelake Louise in the southern Rockies or Tête Jaune in the northor Glacier in the Selkirks to come into real contact with snowfields and glaciers. What a joy it is to get rid of the hot anddusty everyday world of cities for a while and come close toNature in one of her wildest moods! It is not only the mountaineerwho feels the seduction of the cool, clean solitudeswhere glaciers are born and do their wonderful work. Everyhealthy manor woman must yield to the delight of living inthose inspiring surroundings.
It is worthwhile to put on warm strong clothes and hob-nailedshoes and fill your lungs with mountain air in a scrambleup to the snow fields to see how the glacial machinery works,machinery which some thousands of years ago shaped almostthe whole surface of Canada, doing its work on the plains as4well as the mountains and leaving it the splendid land of lakesand rivers and fertile prairies and rolling hills which it is to-day.
Snowline.
To reach the snows generally means some miles of walkingand climbing, often through forest covered slopes at first wherethe outside world is lost. Then the trees begin to thin and growstunted, revealing between the trunks blue valleys with a lakeor two and far off cliffs and mountains. At last the trees ceaseat 7,500 feet and you are at timberline. Here the three Rockymountain heathers spread soft thick carpets between stiff bushesonly a few feet high but with trun